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Friday, January 22, 2010

Yes, it's a bit late to write about it but ah wuz they-ah - at the Kailash Kher and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan concert. And I thought it was pretty darn great.

We were in the (ahem) VIP area, which extended to about a mile from the stage. About half a mile away, were my husband and I and the mother and the mother's sister, otherwise known as the masi. Anyway, it was crowded but it was beautiful (Purana Qila - had never been inside before) - and despite the cold weather, it all warmed up pretty soon and was thoroughly enjoyable.

I thought Kailash Kher was a really great performer, sang really well and had loads of energy. The best part was watching him gel with his band, who had a really cute guitarist ( the minute I mentioned this Vijay took a dislike to him - although let's face it, I had to slip on my spectacles to make out Kailash's form, so I could be pretty wrong about the cuteness of the guitarist). But the band was really talented and they looked they were having so much fun!

Kailash kept making these comments during the performance, and he made a lot of fun of those of us in the VIP area 'these VIP types are too cool to get up and cheer, etc'. I looked around me and had to agree, they were a pretty stuffy lot and kind of old. Not my mom and masi, huh! The others, the others!

Anyway, so he also made this comment at one point about Aman Ki Asha being a very noble 'cose' and a distinct and unkind murmur of mostly female laughter went up at his pronunciation. But I thought he was really sweet.

After a few songs, he made way for Rahat and I was very surprised to hear how incredibly beautiful and melodious the latter's voice sounded - he isn't quite the performer that Kailash is, but the voice, the voice. Really, truly amazing.

But to my disappointment, he ended up singing mostly songs that I knew rather than some nice Pakistani numbers - I didn't even know before this how many Bollywood movies he's sung for. Given the context of the whole concert ( Indo-Pak peace), one was hoping for a little bit of Pakistan in the whole performance but after the first couple of numbers and I think one Dumadum Mast Qualandar type, there really wasn't much. He even sang that song from Singh is King that Peanut likes (Teri Ore), and it really wasn't that hot. But the voice!

Towards the end, he invited Kailash on stage for the only song they song together - Piya re, I think. Was nice, but yeah...nice. By this time, I had abandoned my VIP status and pushed to the front, pulled up a chair in imitation of a gutsy north-eastern girl and jumped on top of it to clap along, with my husband behind me waiting to catch me when the inevitable fall came.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Moving swiftly, along - we actually went for a movie in a hall - an unheard of thing for me and Vijay since Peanut came along.

A colleague of mine remarked how for some reason, almost everyone he knows who has gone for the movie, ended up going in groups of three. I scoffed, as is my wont, until I realized that the same was true for my mother-sister-friend trio who had gone the previous day. I was filled with wonder when my sister-in-law-brother-in-law-neice-in-law also ended up going together. And what was even more surprising was when we finally decided to bung Peanut in the car and take her along with us - her first movie in the hall ever at the tender age of 2 years 5 months.

So about the groups of three thing - coincidence? Or some kind of mass-hypnotization-collective-subconscious thing? You be the judge.

Anyway, about the movie. Now, Peanut is an avid TV watcher and we told her we were going to show her a BEEG TEEVEE. She was fine with the basic idea and being as cute as she is, she was eventually allowed by the security guards to carry her little Nirula's ice-cream cup inside the hall, so was okay for about the first three minutes. Then she realized it was kind of dark, loud and people on the screen were around thirty times her size. She panicked and started insisting - 'Ghar jaana hai' and wailing. I was immediately embarassed and started to get ready to bundle her out but Vijay was determined to watch this particular movie ( I walked out of Kaminey because it was 'disturbingly violent' on the rare occasion that we went for a film together). He asked me to sit back and relax, took Peanut from me and started to 'explain the story to her'. Miraculously, it worked and after some coaxing, Peanut agreed to resume her ice-cream eating and watch with wide eyes what was going on.

And so it went. There were occasions in the middle when she got bored, and wanted to leave, and very manipulatively told me 'Mama poo-poo kiya, saaf kar do', which turned out to be a blatant lie. Thankfully at interval, there was a big bag of Popcorn which gave us a fresh new lease of life.

So basically it turned out fine. And we all went back home fairly happy. Vijay really liked the movie, Peanut liked the songs, and I kind of liked seeing parts of my old campus again, although it was a bit weird seeing those hallowed halls used as a movie set, but hey. Also, while I usually dislike Aamir with a strange inexplicable intensity, I thought he was actually okay in the movie. And the best part was, I really didn't remember the book being anything like it - in fact, I had only agreed to go because my sister said it was funny and a review said it was not anything like 5 point someone.

And yesterday, it was very amusing to hear about my baby's conversation with my sister.

She looked up at her and said 'Maasi - BEEG TEE VEE - All eez well!'

My sister immediately looked at me and said 'You took her for 3 idiots in the hall?'